Final Exam Flashcards
Mind as Computer:
What is the computer metaphor at the heart of cognitive psychology?
The mind as a computer - info comes in, and something comes out. People process info and a behavior results. Helps guide research questions (ex. do we do things serially?)
History of Field:
What was Donald Broadbent’s role?
- Father of cognitive psychology
History of Field:
What area did John B. Watson and B.F. Skinner focus on?
-Behaviorism: focus on stimulus and behavior
History Field:
What was Max Wertheimer’s contribution?
- Gestalt psychology: study of how brain organizes the world (ex. we see patterns like groupings of color)
History of Field:
Who was Edward Titchner and what was his contribution?
Student of Wundt. Brought Structuralism to the United States
History of Field:
Describe the school of thought Wilhelm Wundt was associated with.
Structuralism - understanding components/structure of consciousness
Founders:
Describe the area of psychology Ernst Weber and Gustav Fechner focused on
Psychophysics - focus on the relationship between external stimuli and internal experience
Information Processing Approach:
How is Sternberg’s study an example of the information-processing approach?
- response time is a clue as to how the brain retrieves something
Sensation:
What are the function of the pupil and iris?
- Pupil: allows light to pass into eye
- Iris: muscle: adjusts pupil depending on available light
Sensation:
What is the function of the cornea?
- Provide some protection against damage
Sensation:
What is the function of the lens?
- Bend light
- Adjusts to accommodate distance
Sensation:
What is the function of the retina and the fovea?
- Retina: location of rods and cones
- Fovea: point of central focus, full of cones, small part of overall retina
Sensation:
What is the optic nerve?
- where axons of cells bind together
- blind spot in this area
- blind spot of one eye filled in by the other eye
Sensation:
What is the difference between rods and cones?
- rods: respond to any light, don’t need much light; more active at night, predominantly in periphery, less detail
- cones: respond to preferred wavelengths, need lots of light, more active during the day
Sensation:
What are after effects? What color vision theory is this?
The result of tiring out the cones that respond to a certain color which then allows you to see the opposite color. Colors seen as paired opposites: red & green, yellow & blue, black & white. This is the Opponent Process Theory of color vision
Sensation:
Describe the ventral stream
- “what” stream
- temporal lobe
- processes object’s properties
- damage produces visual agnosia (difficulty recognizing objects)
Sensation:
Describe the dorsal stream
- “where” stream
- parietal lobe
- processes spatial relationships
- damage can produce apraxia (difficulty with some movements)
Bottom-Up & Top-Down:
What is the difference between bottom-up and top-down processing?
- Bottom-up: processing stimuli visually, building up into recognition
- Top-down: start with knowledge and expectations
- Perception is both bottom-up and top-down
Perception:
What did the Hubel and Wiesel study find?
- cells in visual cortex have more specific preferences than ganglions
- individual cells have preferred angle (fire more for certain angles and less for others)
- cells in hyper columns have similar preferences
Visual Illusions:
What is Carey and Diamond’s (1977) Encoding Switch Hypothesis?
When first born, humans process faces featurally. Transition to holistic processing around age 10. Young children process featurally, adults process holisitically.
Visual Illusions:
What’s the difference between holistic (configural) and featural face
Featurally: process individual features
Holisitic: process as a whole
Visual Illusions:
What are Gestalt Grouping laws?
Ways of grouping that help us organize and draw meaning from objects; focus on the whole is the sum of its parts
Visual Illusions:
Name and briefly explain the Gestalt grouping laws
Proximity - closeness between objects
Similarity - see structure
Continuation - if view something partially blocked, it seems to continue
Closure - default assumption that objects are closed, have edges, take up area
Good figure - default assumption of regular shapes
Cross-Modal Interactions:
Explain the ball illusion
Typically the clicking noise in the 2nd trial makes it more likely for people to report that the balls bounce off one another